Health

They Just Increase Amount of Poison We’re Exposed To

The controversy over genetically modified crops has focused on whether or not they were safe to eat. We have to ask ourselves what was the purpose for genetically modifying them in the first place.

That was so they could be sprayed with Monsanto’s Roundup and they wouldn’t die. Only the weeds would die. But this leaves the crops, mainly corn and soybeans, with a nice coating of poison. It won’t kill them, but it might kill you.

The next promise of the chemical corporations was that the use of GMO sprayed with weed killers would lead to a significant increase in crop yields, but that hasn’t happened either.

Some of the murals have been in San Diego and some have been abroad. PangeaSeed mural projects aim to raise awareness about different issues effecting our oceans. As an artist for PangeaSeed she has traveled to Sri Lanka, Vietnam, New Zealand, and several cities in Mexico.

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s Statement on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Decision to Not Grant Easement

Cannon Ball, N.D.— The department of the Army will not approve an easement that will allow the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe. The following statement was released by Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II.

“Today, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that it will not be granting the easement to cross Lake Oahe for the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline. Instead, the Corps will be undertaking an environmental impact statement to look at possible alternative routes. We wholeheartedly support the decision of the administration and commend with the utmost gratitude the courage it took on the part of President Obama, the Army Corps, the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior to take steps to correct the course of history and to do the right thing.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and all of Indian Country will be forever grateful to the Obama Administration for this historic decision.

Like a rogue wave the Election Day victory of Donald Trump for President has left about half the nation stunned and the other half giddy. Among those most worried – environmentalists who are girding for a long series of battles around climate and expecting attacks on keystone agencies, executive orders and legislation including pollution emission standards, the Clean Water Act and the EPA.

Yesterday, Kris Schlech wrote a short post about how Ocean Beach just gained 8 new Heritage Trees – all Torrey Pines.

This was due to the sustained efforts of Friends of Peninsula Trees – the group that formed to fight the removal of a huge Torrey Pine on Saratoga Avenue last summer.

Torrey pines – and other trees for that matter – that have gained Heritage Tree designation have special protections and if the city or its contractor deem a Heritage Tree must be removed, they must exercise other mitigation efforts before chopping.

The James Slatic family sat in San Diego Civil court Monday, November 15th, along with an impressive group of supporters, to listen to testimony on just why The San Diego District Attorney confiscated each of the family of four’s checking and savings accounts and has refused to give the funds back in the absence of criminal behavior.

It was tough to understand government seizing money from two young girls and their parents and as the testimony unfolded it became clear no financial investigation was conducted either. Still, anti-cannabis Judge Jay Bloom ruled against the family and the case will now be moving up to a higher court.

Save Peninsula Trees has been active this past month! We received our (official) letter from the City and eight OB Torrey pine trees have been designated as Heritage Trees. They will forevermore be identified as such on the City’s Master Tree Inventory.

There are other trees in OB we’d like to identify and nominate, but this is a wonderful start and OBceans should feel proud to be the keepers of such national treasures! We also created a flyer with loads of useful info about Torrey pines, the Green Store has copies, or ask for one digitally through
savepeninsulatrees@gmail.com.

Police used water cannons and tear gas against hundreds of Dakota Access Pipeline protesters in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, late Sunday, Nov. 20. At least one person was arrested and dozens injured.

The confrontation began at 6pm, near the encampment were the protests against the $3.8 billion pipeline have been ongoing for months. According to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department, 400 protesters attempted to cross Blackwater Bridge on state Highway 1806 after removing a burned-out truck.

A decades-long battle over the proposed Gregory landfill has ended. Yesterday – Nov. 17- , the Pala Band of Mission Indians announced the tribe has complete purchase of more than 700 acres of the property—including most of Gregory Canyon and Gregory Mountain, a sacred site known as Chokla.

Shasta Gaughen with the Pala Indians called the news “amazing,” adding in an e-mail, ”This means that a dump in Gregory Canyon will never happen. Chokla, Medicine Rock, and other spiritual and cultural sites on the property will now be protected forever. Critical wildlife habitat, endangered species, and the San Luis Rey River will be spared the threat posed by millions of tons of polluting garbage.”

GCL, LLC retained ownership of a portion of the property but has agreed to pursue construction of residential and commercial development instead of a landfill on other portions of the property outside of the mountain and canyon.

California voters approved Proposition 64, the Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act, by a vote of 56% to 44%. Voters in Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada also approved legalization measures. Medical cannabis had a big night, too. Voters approved or expanded medical cannabis laws in Florida, North Dakota, Arkansas and Montana.

Proposition 64 legalizes the adult use, possession and cultivation of cannabis for non-medical purposes in California. It also creates a process for licensing and regulating adult use businesses, including cultivators, product manufacturers and retailers by 2018.

On Tuesday, November 15th, Native Americans, environmentalists, and nurses will stage a protest at the San Diego Army Corps of Engineers office as part of a national day of action calling on the Army Corps and President Obama to revoke permits for the Dakota Access Pipeline.

There will be speakers – including local Native American leaders who’ve traveled to Standing Rock – and music. Organizers will sign and deliver individual postcards to the Army Corps.

There was a groundbreaking event for People’s Organic Food store’s new organic cafe and juice bar on Saturday, November 12th. It will be located just east of the market, where Tiny’s bar used to stand.

On Friday, November 4th, the California Coastal Commission finally gave SeaWorld what it wanted. In what veteran San Diego Union-Tribune writer, Lori Weisberg, called an “easy approval“, the Commission okayed new decorations for its old Orca tanks.

Call them a new backdrop for the set, call them a new stage for a new Orca encounter, call them whatever – the new decor – which will include a “Northwestern” motif, complete with fake fir trees, fake waterfalls, and a fake rock fiberglass facade – will be for the patrons, the visitors – to make them feel better – it won’t be for the Orcas. They’ll still be in the same old tanks.

Oil Corporation Tramps on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights

By John Lawrence

Finally, there is an alliance of a major group — U.S. Indians — and environmentalists who are taking a stand to prevent the furtherance of fossil fuel interests.

Bill McKibben of 350.org says we must stop now insofar as building more fossil fuel infrastructure, which is what a pipeline represents, if we are to have a hope and a prayer of saving the planet from the effects of global warming.

The Native Americans have those interests and more — they rely on clean water from the Missouri River for their lives and livelihoods. This pipeline would probably result in the pollution of the water they rely on because pipelines aren’t foolproof. They break and spew their pollution. In addition, the pipeline construction is desecrating Indian burial sites.

Barrio Logan is little known to most San Diegans – beyond being a predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood near downtown. Yet it is one of San Diego’s most historically significant and culturally important neighborhoods.

In particular, it has national prominence for its role in the Chicano / Mexican-American civil rights movement. However, more than a Chicano historic asset, the neighborhood and it’s history stands as a monument to the resilience and survival of the nation’s minority and working class populations in the face of assaults and exploitation by the overwhelming power of the state and business interests.

In particular, many ethnic working-class urban neighborhoods across the country were destroyed or severely damaged by en masse relocation of their residents to build freeways and other neighborhood-destroying and suburb serving facilities.

Hurricane Matthew Imperils US Nukes As It Threatens Millions

Hurricane Matthew, which brought death and destruction from Haiti to the Carolinas in October, also had an impact on a number of aged nuclear facilities in the US. There are no nuclear plants in Haiti, Cuba or the Bahamas, which suffered the worst of the hurricane’s wrath.

On October 4, as Matthew approached Florida, Florida Power & Light, the electrical utility that runs the St. Lucie nuke plant in the southeast part of the state, declared an “unusual event” at the plant.

On a scale of 1 to 5, an Unusual Event is a 1, with the worst such nuclear plant emergency being mandatory evacuation.

There is a lot of discussion these days about climate change. Global warming. Carbon emissions. The Climate Action Plan. You no doubt have friends talking about going electric, or who are proud owners and drivers of electric vehicles. Or friends or family members who devoutly bike everywhere. You may know some folks too who use public transportation.

The majority of San Diegans are dissatisfied with public transportation. San Diegans prefer cars — it’s our way of life. Not necessarily across the board — many satisfied bus riders in OB take the 923 bus downtown for work and are quite satisfied — doing work, reading, or playing games on their bus ride. Many people do use public transportation and are satisfied. But we have by no means reached an efficiency of public transportation comparable to New York City, San Francisco, Berlin, or many other large cities.

Voters Should Reject Measure A- This year San Diego voters have an opportunity to take a critical first step towards bringing San Diego into the 21st century. Right now, San Diego has an outdated and obsolete transportation system. Measure A will perpetuate that system for another 40 years!

Two generations of San Diegans will be stuck with this backward system instead of clean and just transportation if voters don’t give a resounding NO to Measure A on November 8.

Sanders Speaks Out in Support of Proposition 61, the California Drug Price Relief Act

Prescription drug prices in the United States are the highest in the world — by far. Californians on Nov. 8 have a chance to stand up to the pharmaceutical industry’s greed and spark a national movement to end this price-gouging. Today, no laws prevent drug companies from doubling or tripling prices. So they just do it. The most recent flagrant example is the emergency allergy injection, EpiPen. Its maker, Mylan, jacked up the price of this 40-year-old medication by 461% between 2007 and 2015. During that same period, compensation for Mylan’s CEO rose 671%. And that’s just one company and one drug.

Proposition 61, the California Drug Price Relief Act, would bar the state from paying more than the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs does for the same drugs.

The OB Rag today – Friday, October 21st – received a courtesy message that the City will be removing a Monterey Cypress tree at 4866 Del Mar Avenue on Friday, October 28th.

According to Anthony Santacroce, Senior Public Information Officer for the city, arborists –

“… have diagnosed it as dead and decaying at the roots, trunk and branches as well as suffering from a preponderance of wood boring insects. The assessments recommend the tree be removed immediately, as it cannot be rehabilitated and poses a public safety risk to both lives and property.”

Seven years ago you left to go who knows where. The time of diagnosis and death was so very short. Sunday will be your birthday; cut short by the 3 packs a day you smoked for 30 years. Diagnosed with lung cancer after stopping smoking for 34 years, it still got you in the end.

I remember the day when the diagnosis was made, and I remember you saying that if you knew smoking would still get you, you never would have stopped. Your craved that cigarette for some 60 years, and often substituted Irish Whiskey (what else?) after dinner. What you really wanted was a smoke along with the Irish.

They call themselves marine mammal protectors – the organizers of a rally this Saturday to protest what they call the Navy Dolphin Gitmo. Their goal, they say, is to “expedite humane end to Gitmo like Navy Marine Mammal Program due to tax waste, national security threat and inadequate dolphin/sea lion housing and care.”

From their press statement:

Navy Dolphin Rally

Welcome to ALL concerned, peaceful citizens, taxpayers, military spending/national security advocates, elected officials & marine mammal protectors! We invite you ALL to attend or support the Navy Dolphin Gitmo Rally!

WHEN: Oct. 22nd 9:30 am-1pm (10/22/16)

WHERE: San Diego @ Harbor Dr Bridge next to Spanish Landing across from San Diego Airport.

I wasn’t going to do it. I knew that if I reviewed this restaurant there would be many comments – some favorable, but mostly unfavorable towards the review. However, I have been asked by so many people what I thought about it. I decided to “bite the bullet” and go.

My friend Barbara and I have talked about “Plant Power” for months. I should immediately point out that neither of us are vegans. We like our meats; we like our breads; we like so many things that are not offered at this restaurant. But we went in with an open mind and decided to order several items so that we could sample the menu.

To begin with I want to say that once you get into the parking lot (off of Voltaire) there was ample parking.

When medical marijuana patient Shaun Smith won his case with a ten minute not guilty verdict in June, he could not have known the District Attorney had already spent the cash they took from his medical cannabis collective and that the Sheriff’s department would take such a long time to return the motorcycle confiscated from Shaun’s home. But, both DA Bonnie Dumanis and Sheriff Gore have so far failed to return the property of a vindicated citizen.

In June, Shaun’s case moved through the San Diego North County courthouse very quickly and within 10 minutes a jury had reached a verdict of not guilty on the possession for sale and manufacturing charges the DA had levied after a raid on Shuan’s Oceanside home. Shaun was operating a legal collective and the group was saving for a storefront location.

Flawed Transportation Plan Underlies Measure A

By David Harris, SD 350 and Ruben Arizmendi, Chair, Sierra Club San Diego

Why are most labor unions, numerous environmental groups, and several local elected officials opposing the proposed ballot measure that would utilize a half-cent sales tax increase to improve roadways and public transit? Aren’t we all tired of driving on deteriorated roads and congested freeways?

Yes, of course, but looking beyond the potholes and into the future, we need to ask what should our transportation system look like 20 or 40 years from now?

Measure A on the November ballot follows the “planning as usual” approach. It gives allocations of funding to every city but fails to address our long-term transportation problems. This measure does not substantially decrease greenhouse gas emissions that are already endangering our quality of life; nor does it create a more efficient system to meet the mobility needs of a growing population.

Neighbors of the construction project at the corner of Ebers and Greene streets are calling for their fellow OBceans to rally and demonstrate against the project on Saturday, October 15th. A rally and informational picket line will begin around noon right at the site itself.

So why protest this project at Ebers and Greene?

The owner-developer of the land is Curtis Nelson of Nelco Properties, and his project has had many problems and issues since its beginning, multiple investigations by city, county and state agencies, from the asbestos exposures, to the unlicensed contractors directing the work on the 3-story structure, still in its wood-frame, from the lack of scaffolding, to the underpayment of the workers – and to much more.

But one of the central issues and complaints of the project – raised by neighbors and local planning veterans – is really a question of process.

California, Arizona, Nevada, Maine, and Massachusetts will be voting on legalizing the recreational use of marijuana this fall.

Some people, including many pro-legalization advocates, think this is about easing another legal intoxicant into society. It’s not. It’s about undoing a prohibition based on ‘scientific racism.’ It’s about a ‘war on drugs’ that served as a gateway towards militarization of law enforcement and eroded the constitutional rights of all Americans.

Legalizing pot won’t undo those things. In case you haven’t noticed, government and society rarely move backward. But legalization does provide a path moving forward that makes a lot more sense than the failed policies proceeding it.

Opps, no, it’s still open. No, it’s only open for a while. But then closing. No, it’s only remodeling.

We had to find out just what is going on at this historic eatery – the first organic Mexican place in San Diego? or Point Loma? Definitely OB. So South OB Girl was gracious enough to drop everything and rush over there this morning.

What she found out is either distressing or encouraging for fans of the restaurant.

South OB Girl heard a couple of different things. Yes, it’s open today – and will be perhaps for one more week, then it’s closing. But it’s only closing for a remodel, and then will reopen again.

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